1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an endoscope apparatus capable of inputting a character and a program for controlling the operation thereof.
Priority is claimed on Japanese Patent Application No. 2008-117776 filed on Apr. 28, 2008, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of Related Art
An example of a method for efficiently performing character input in household apparatuses even when the types or number of keys used for the character input is limited includes a method of providing a character string storage portion that can register character strings and a character string selecting portion that selects and calls a character string from the character strings registered in the character string storage portion (for example, refer to Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2000-259327). Also in an industrial endoscope, the types or number of input units is small since the industrial endoscope tends to be made small.
As operation modes of a general industrial endoscope, there are a live mode in which a captured image is displayed in real time, a play mode in which a recorded image is played, and a measurement mode in which the length of a damaged part, the area of a corroded part, and the like of a test subject which is a photographic subject are measured on an acquired image. In the live mode and the measurement mode, an image can be recorded in a recording medium, such as a CF card. In addition, the industrial endoscope has a function of recording character string information relevant to an image as a part of an image file and can adopt the above-described method like household apparatuses in order to input a character string efficiently.